Battle of New Caprica Questions *Spoilers*

[Stravo]

I have not seen the entirety of Season 3 and have tried to remain as spoiler free as possible waiting for the DVD but it's been a long time and curse Youtube for having a video of the Battle of New Carpica inserted into a video of a montage of space battles. So I downloaded the episodes up to Exodus Part 2 from iTunes and watched them over the weekend.

While I thought Exodus Part 2 was brilliant and portrayed the best nBSG space battle yet I had a few questions/observations that I thought you guys could answer for me.

In Resurection Ship 2 battlestars handily wipe out several base stars and the resurection ship with minimal damage to themselves, in this episode 4 basestars cripple the Galactica and destroy the Pegasus. Granted the Pegasus ended up with 3 kills (onscreeen) but 2 of those kills were as a result of the kamikaze run so it doesn't really count. Any idea why this might be?

When Galactica jumps into the atmosphere of New Caprica she dropped like a stone, obviously not aerodynamic but if her main drives can push her through space shouldn't they at least keep her aloft in-atmosphere? Or would firing drives like that in-atmosphere have disastrous effects for the folks below her?


The tactics Lee used seemed a little like writer's fiat to kill the Pegasus. Is there a reason why he needed to go straight down the bracketed middle? What was preventing Pegasus from just holding her distance and pummelling the baseships as we saw in Captain's Hand and Resurection Ship?

Finally we have the Galactica escaping while the Pegasus does her suicide run thing. However isn't this a monumentally stupid move militarily in the long run? The Galactica is a museum ship, already heavily damaged and frankly second best to the Pegasus in every way. The Pegasus has everything the fleet needs including manufacturing facilities to make Vipers. She's bigger, tougher, faster, more modern. It makes infinitely more sense for the Galactica to pull the kamikaze run and the Pegasus to get the hell out of dodge.

Granted Lee already went in there fully prepared to pull the manuever but you think Adama would have improvised some sort of abandon ship manuever to preserve a far more valuable fleet asset. This one is not really a question just more of a criticism of the decisions made in those final moments. My feeling is if Lee had enough time to get his crew to escape raptors then he could have brought enough time for Adama and his crew to do the same and save the more valuable ship.

Also two little followups. God...please tell me they're not setting up Starbuck as a Cylon.

And will Lee get rid of that gut in the 3rd season? He looks painfully bloated especially around his face. I need him back in fighting form. At least his dad got rid of the porn stache.

[Chris OFarrell]

In Resurection Ship 2 battlestars handily wipe out several base stars and the resurection ship with minimal damage to themselves, in this episode 4 basestars cripple the Galactica and destroy the Pegasus. Granted the Pegasus ended up with 3 kills (onscreeen) but 2 of those kills were as a result of the kamikaze run so it doesn't really count. Any idea why this might be?

Several.

1. The battle plan in Resurrection drew off the raider swarms the Cylons rely on to thicken their missile salvos and tie up the defenses of the Battle Stars.

2. In Resurection Ship, the two Battlestars were able to engage the two Base Ships on their terms; in close quaters, together, working to concentrate on one target, while doing damage to the other, then switching over to pound the other one. In Exodus, Galactica is on the defensive from the start, already damaged from the atmospheric jump and without fighter cover, Cylons are able to close in to point blank range and keep pounding her, her raiders also helping to disable the weapons systems and tie up point defense. The situation also led to 4 Base Ships beating up on one target, as opposed to 2 base ships having to split their firepower between two mutually supporting Battlestars.

3. Galactica was running at a minimum crew complement at the time, quite a few of which were also junior officers promoted to replace the much more experienced people lost ground side. Which clearly had deficiencies in terms of reaction times, damage control, weapons availability e.t.c.

4. When Pegasus attacked, she was running more or less on computer control, no redundancy, no damage control, no nothing. Lee took her in on a suicide mission. He deliberately brought the wraith of all those Base Ships down upon himself to draw fire away from Galactica. His first salvo disabled or destroyed one Base Ship, but the others then were able to split up and attack from multiple vectors, supported by raiders, pounding Pegasus and apparently knocking out her FTL capabilities and steadily knocking out her weapons -she was doing very little major firing when we see Lee jump out, again probably because of the lack of a full crew and damage control.


Now if both ships had jumped in from the start with full crew, especially with Lee having his full complement of fighters, say Pegasus jumping into orbit while Galactica did her death dive, then joined her, then they probably would have had a decent shot at both ships surviving. The two ships, with a full fighter wing between them, would be much better able to absorb the incomming firepower, while concentrating enough back to probably knock out one or two base ships, but the time in the battle Pegasus jumped in in the OTL, which of course in turn will decrease the firepower being thrown at the Battlestars accordingly.

Galactica survived a terrific pounding and managed to jump out. Working together and with a full crew on both, I have little dobut both Battlestars would be able to retreat after Colonial One lifts, having probably very much defended themselves and knocked the teeth out of the Cylon defense.

When Galactica jumps into the atmosphere of New Caprica she dropped like a stone, obviously not aerodynamic but if her main drives can push her through space shouldn't they at least keep her aloft in-atmosphere? Or would firing drives like that in-atmosphere have disastrous effects for the folks below her?

I'm almost certain thats the case, but its a mixture of factors as well. Galactica would have probably had to jump in with her stern facing the surface for that to work. Coming in flat like she did, her secondary thrusters may have had a very hard time rotating her into position.

And I'm sure it would have made things just that much harder for the poor Viper pilots trying to launch

The tactics Lee used seemed a little like writer's fiat to kill the Pegasus. Is there a reason why he needed to go straight down the bracketed middle? What was preventing Pegasus from just holding her distance and pummelling the baseships as we saw in Captain's Hand and Resurection Ship?

Galactica. If Lee didn't get in their FAST and make himself the immediate threat to get the Cylons attention, they could probably have finished her off easily enough, at the least destroying, rather then simply disabling, her FTL systems to keep Galactica in system, THEN gang up on Pegasus, THEN go back and finish off Galactica later at their leisure.

Finally we have the Galactica escaping while the Pegasus does her suicide run thing. However isn't this a monumentally stupid move militarily in the long run? The Galactica is a museum ship, already heavily damaged and frankly second best to the Pegasus in every way. The Pegasus has everything the fleet needs including manufacturing facilities to make Vipers. She's bigger, tougher, faster, more modern. It makes infinitely more sense for the Galactica to pull the kamikaze run and the Pegasus to get the hell out of dodge.

Granted Lee already went in there fully prepared to pull the manuever but you think Adama would have improvised some sort of abandon ship manuever to preserve a far more valuable fleet asset. This one is not really a question just more of a criticism of the decisions made in those final moments. My feeling is if Lee had enough time to get his crew to escape raptors then he could have brought enough time for Adama and his crew to do the same and save the more valuable ship.

Lee clearly went in with a skelaton crew of only *dozens* of people, he carried enough raptors on board to evacuate them -probably more Raptors then he needed in fact, I bet they were all half loaded for excess capacity, just in case any were lost in the battle- and fully prepared to abandon his ship if needed.

Galactica was half disabled at this point but still carried her half full complement, it would take a very long time to evacuate from ship to ship using raptors -and I somehow dobut the Raider Swarm are going to allow THAT to happen- all the while the Base Ships keep pounding away.

Lee could have gone in with his full crew and all his fighters, but frankly its not certain it would have made that much of a difference, he was still horribly undermanned and he got there too late, he would still be facing the full force of a quartet of pissed off Base Ships that had only taken moderate damage, more or less by himself...though I'm willing to bet odds that a full crew could have kept the ship taking less damage through firepower and damage control, so that when the time came to run, their FTL would still be operational.

Though Pegasus's FTL took heavy damage in "Captains Hand", it may well have been a jury rigged solution easy to knock out anyway.
Also two little followups. God...please tell me they're not setting up Starbuck as a Cylon.

And will Lee get rid of that gut in the 3rd season? He looks painfully bloated especially around his face. I need him back in fighting form. At least his dad got rid of the porn stache.

Yup, though over several episodes.
Some great Adama lines of course about this

[Alan Bolte]

In Resurection Ship 2 battlestars handily wipe out several base stars and the resurection ship with minimal damage to themselves, in this episode 4 basestars cripple the Galactica and destroy the Pegasus.

Some significant differences here. Major difference is fighters. In the earlier battle, Galactica and Pegasus brought their half their fighter complement along, with the other half engaging nearly the full cylon complement some distance away. Stripped of their fighters, the basestars were vulnerable. In the battle of New Caprica, the Galactica's Vipers were all in atmo, while the Pegasus left her Vipers with the ragtag fleet. The cylons, on the other hand, sicced nearly all their Raiders on an already heavily damaged (from falling through the air) Galactica. Pegasus had to come in and kill all of the basestars quite quickly to save Galactica.

Or would firing drives like that in-atmosphere have disastrous effects for the folks below her?

This seems likely to me.

What was preventing Pegasus from just holding her distance and pummelling the baseships as we saw in Captain's Hand and Resurection Ship?

Partly this is because of lack of time, but mostly Pegasus hadn't been repaired properly after Captain's Hand. It really wasn't in shape to fight for long, especially not without the Vipers.

Finally we have the Galactica escaping while the Pegasus does her suicide run thing. However isn't this a monumentally stupid move militarily in the long run? The Galactica is a museum ship, already heavily damaged and frankly second best to the Pegasus in every way. The Pegasus has everything the fleet needs including manufacturing facilities to make Vipers. She's bigger, tougher, faster, more modern. It makes infinitely more sense for the Galactica to pull the kamikaze run and the Pegasus to get the hell out of dodge.

I can't really argue with this, other than to say that the suicide run was Lee's stupid idea, and if he'd stuck with the plan the Pegasus would survive to go on with the ragtag fleet, but Galactica would be destroyed, along with most of her crew.

Granted Lee already went in there fully prepared to pull the manuever but you think Adama would have improvised some sort of abandon ship manuever to preserve a far more valuable fleet asset. This one is not really a question just more of a criticism of the decisions made in those final moments. My feeling is if Lee had enough time to get his crew to escape raptors then he could have brought enough time for Adama and his crew to do the same and save the more valuable ship.

It seems just as likely to me that he'd have gotten them both killed.

Also two little followups. God...please tell me they're not setting up Starbuck as a Cylon.

Don't think so.

And will Lee get rid of that gut in the 3rd season? He looks painfully bloated especially around his face. I need him back in fighting form. At least his dad got rid of the porn stache.

He gets rid of it quickly.

[Alan Bolte]

Ha, ya beat me, Chris.

[fusion]

Finally we have the Galactica escaping while the Pegasus does her suicide run thing. However isn't this a monumentally stupid move militarily in the long run? The Galactica is a museum ship, already heavily damaged and frankly second best to the Pegasus in every way. The Pegasus has everything the fleet needs including manufacturing facilities to make Vipers. She's bigger, tougher, faster, more modern. It makes infinitely more sense for the Galactica to pull the kamikaze run and the Pegasus to get the hell out of dodge.

Or else It wouldn't be called Battle Star Galatica...

Really that is the only reason that I can truly come up with.

[phongn]

I can't really argue with this, other than to say that the suicide run was Lee's stupid idea, and if he'd stuck with the plan the Pegasus would survive to go on with the ragtag fleet, but Galactica would be destroyed, along with most of her crew.

Most of the fleeing civilians would've probably been killed, too - once Galactica was destroyed (or even mission killed), the Basestars could've destroyed the civilian ships at their leisure.